I recently picked up Hasagawa’s P-47M at a considerable discount from my local hobby shop. Of course, I was thrilled having always loved thunderbolts and wanting to try building a 1/32 scale kit for some time. However, upon doing some further research, I’m a little leery about having to finish my kit with bare metal undersides as seems to have been the case with most if not all P-47M’s. So, my question is, did any P-47M’s have their undersides painted and if so do any aftermarket companies sell markings for those aircraft in 1/32 scale?

Hi Noah.All the P-47M's that came over to the UK went to the 56th FG based at Boxted at the time.They were delivered in NMF and individual squadrons had their own colour schemes. The scheme was only applied to the top surfaces, and the undersides remained NMF.P-47M's delivered at the end of the war recieved 56th FG codes etc but remained unpainted.

So, if you wanted to do a P-47M as they looked in the E.T.O the underside was NMF.

The P-47M were essentially "hotrod" D-30's, and one possible "get out of jail free" option would be to build your kit as a D-30 used by the French Air Force. The front part of the M kit engine would be wrong for a D-30 ( M's used series C 2800's), but if that isnt an issue for you then you could build it in OD topside/NG undersides.Some of the USAAF groups operating in Italy had camouflaged D-30's, the 57th FG "Norma/Little Bunny" for example as well.